The official CSG blog

It’s Award Season and we’re showing off the “hardware.”

It’s awards season again, and we are thrilled to announce that CSG’s client projects have come away with many winning entries in three competitions!

And while winning awards is wonderful, our main objective is always to collaborate with our clients to develop creative strategies and innovative tactics designed to elevate their brands, their events and association marketing initiatives.

The following are the clients, projects and categories of the entries that brought home awards.

Shock, humor, emotion — Sunday’s close Super Bowl game had us (and 100 million other viewers!) glued to the edge of our seats. And Sunday or not, our marketer minds were still tuning in as we took stock of our favorite Super Bowl commercials, and the ones that sent us scurrying for snack breaks instead.

Last year you might remember several ads paying homage to the nation’s immigrant roots and giving nods to civil rights movements. Super Bowl 2018 sang a different tune, with ads taking on a lighter tone as politics took a back seat in favor of some good ole’ humor. (Dodge Ram, take note!)

Our newest designer, Courtney Lopes, has pliéd her way into CSG and added a keen eye to our design team, not to mention local barres (hey it’s different kind of happy hour!) This Montclair, VA native brings a host of artistic abilities with over 10 years of design experience and an impressive repertoire of adorable family pictures and videos.

The U.S. Postal Service has new pricing planned for the New Year, but with single-penny increases per piece, it won’t break the bank for most. Coming January 21, 2018, the current price of mailing will see a 1.9% increase overall.

Here’s the lowdown:

First-class (“Forever”) stamp will increase from $0.49 to $0.50 each

Postcards will increase from $0.34 to $0.35 each

Metered letters on the rise from $0.46 to $0.47 each

As always, contact your agency liaison or mail house representative to get specific postage estimates in order to adjust your postage budgets accordingly for the year.

With the busy fall trade show season nearly complete for many of our clients, we wanted to take a moment to share some best practices when it comes to promotional products given out at trade shows. Giveaways like pastries have been used for years to draw attention, foster goodwill, and spark meaningful conversations with potential clients and customers. (If you’ve been swayed by swag and found a profitable solution for your company, we’ve got some tips on how to get your team onboard for the change.)

It was rough waters for the team at the International BoatBuilders’ Exhibition and Conference (IBEX) leading up to its show this past September 19–21, in Tampa, Florida. Hurricane Harvey had just finished pounding the marine industry in southern Texas. As soon as IBEX weathered that storm, it was faced with Hurricane Irma, which began targeting IBEX’s event location just one week ahead of the show opening in Tampa. With two category 4–5 hurricanes hitting the marine industry within just a few weeks, a big question loomed over IBEX — to cancel or not to cancel?

“Adventurous” is both the keyword and modus operandi of our newest designer, Katya Sovich. Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, she earned her M.A. degree in Linguistics and Cross-Cultural Communications at university there. But then she set off on two of her biggest adventures and changed both her career and her homebase: she is now happily married and ensconced in a graphic design career in Virginia – a world away.

Q: Coming to the U.S. was a quite an endeavor. How did that come about?

I just got back from Las Vegas and the 2017 ISA Sign Expo and now we all need a rest! It’s hard work putting on a smashing, record-hitting, successful show. But well worth it. The excitement and energy you feel onsite is palpable. It’s why conferences and trade show work and why professionals from all types of industries attend and exhibit in them.

The 2017 ISA Sign Expo was a sold-out event at Mandalay Bay hosting more than 20,000 sign, visual, and graphics professionals from across the globe. There were rockin’ parties, packed education sessions, and happy exhibitors with cutting-edge technology that you and I see every day in our lives wherever we go.

Michelle Lee is a brand new hire in a brand new position at CSG – that of marketing coordinator, supporting all of the account executives and their clients. She is also an identical twin. Can you guess which of the above mirror images is our employee? Read on! And be alert – she and her sister Lara like to pull classic twin identity switches on the unsuspecting. The surprising thing to them is that people are fooled even when they don’t try to mimic each other at all, even now when they have completely different hair colors!

As I headed down to New Orleans (my first time!) for AASA’s National Conference on Education (they’ve been a client for about 10 years – this was my third NCE), I had a profound realization. In 20 years of marketing, I’m not sure I’ve been to a more “timely” event. Less than one month prior, Betsy DeVos was confirmed as the nation’s new education secretary, after an intense political debate and ultimately a 50-50 vote in the Senate, with the Vice President serving as tie-breaker.